What a difference a year makes

Just as no one criticizes Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with more credibility than Israelis themselves, no one is in a better position to convince Jewish voters that the Democrats are weak on Islamic terror than a Jewish Democrat who has crossed party lines and endorsed a Republican for president for just that reason.

Thus came Joe Lieberman to Boca Raton Wednesday to tell a group of Jewish Republicans about the virtues of a John McCain presidency. If Joe Lieberman is willing to throw his weight behind a candidate who is solidly anti-abortion, opposed to expanding children’s health insurance and in favor of Samuel Alito’s appointment to the Supreme Court all because of his position on fighting Islamic terrorism, then fighting Islamic terrorism must be a pretty important business.

That, in essence, is Lieberman’s pitch to the Jews of South Florida, one he will no doubt be making again Thursday as he appears at a number of Jewish functions in the state.

“Politics, partisan politics particularly, must end at the water’s edge,” he said, quoting Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican isolationist senator from Michigan who famously converted to internationalism towards the end of World War II. “The enemies we have don’t distinguish between Republicans and Democrats. They hate us all and our way of life. I believe that deeply.”